A black bear was spotted climbing up a tree in Brookfield last May. Wildlife experts say bears are frequently attracted to residential areas by bird feeders, leading advocates and some lawmakers to call for greater restrictions on unintentional feeding. Still, others say that a hunt remains necessary to manage the state's bear population.
Tina Heidrich/ contributed photosHARTFORD — After years of frustrated efforts to legalize bear hunting in Connecticut, proponents are raising their hopes that a compromise will soon be reached to allow them to set out on a hunt in the state’s northwestern hills.
A bill under consideration by lawmakers on the Environment Committee would pair a limited hunting season in Litchfield County — where the bulk of the state’s bear population is believed to reside — with stricter regulations on the feeding of wildlife that advocates have long pushed as a non-lethal means of reducing the growing number of conflicts between bears and people.
Additionally, the legislation would address the concerns of farmers who have complained about foraging bears destroying their crops and killing livestock, allowing them to petition the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection for permits to kill nuisance bears.
Ahead of a public hearing on the bill scheduled for this Friday, DEEP released its annual report on Connecticut’s black bears, which pegged the state’s population at between 1,000 and 1,200 bears and growing. Additionally, 2022 saw a record number of home entries by bears, 67, as well as two attacks on humans.
The agency has supported previous efforts to legalize hunting, and is expected to do the same this year, officials said.
“What does concern me is the increasing number of bear conflicts and the escalation in severity of those conflicts specifically,” said Mason Trumbull, DEEP’s deputy commissioner for environmental conservation. “Obviously the bear attacks that happened last year are very concerning.”
Both hunters and farmers have been lobbying for at least a decade for the return of an annual bear hunt, pointing to the state’s burgeoning population of black bears and the presence of a hunt in every surrounding state except for Rhode Island, which only has a small number of bears.
Opposing those efforts are animal rights activists and conservation groups, who have described the hunting of bears as “barbaric,” as well as an ineffective means of reducing run-ins with humans. Since the first measure to allow bear hunting was introduced in 2013, none have made it beyond a vote on the floor of the House or Senate.
Then last October, a black bear attack sent a 10-year-old boy in Morris to the hospital, galvanizing activists on both sides of the issue to put forward their ideas on reducing conflicts with bears. Since the legislative session began in January, lawmakers have put forward more than a dozen bills related to the hunting, killing and feeding of black bears.
With the uproar around bears reaching a crescendo, the House co-chair of the Environment Committee, state Rep. Joe Gresko, D- Stratford, said this week that the committee attempted to draft a wide-ranging bill that incorporated ideas from both camps, despite his personal skepticism that hunting bears will prove to be an effective solution.
“If that altercation had ended differently, there would be an open season at this point,” Gresko said. “I’m trying to work out a compromise to the benefit of both the bears and people.”
Currently, the bill would allow DEEP to establish a lottery system permitting hunters to kill up to 50 black bears each year in Litchfield County, with the dates of the hunting season determined by the agency. Gresko said he has promised proponents of a bear hunt that he will allow an up or down vote on the committee’s bill, including the bear hunt provision.
If that vote fails, however, Gresko said he remains open to removing objectionable provisions in an effort to advance at least some of the measures, including a ban on wildlife feeding.
Hunting opponents, meanwhile, have rallied ahead of Friday’s hearing, with hundreds submitting testimony in favor of non-lethal means of limiting interactions between humans and bears, including stricter regulations on feeding.
“Bears are self-regulating, they’re not going to populate more than their food source allows,” said Ann Gadwah, an organizer with the state chapter of the Sierra Club. “The problem has been that food source is readily available.”
The bill drafted by Gresko and the Environment Committee includes language recommended by DEEP that would ban the intentional feeding of “potentially dangerous” animals such as bears, bobcats, and coyotes. Unintentional feeding, such as through bird feeders or trash that is left outside several days before pickup, would also be addressed by wildlife officers, who could deliver written notices to residents that are attracting bears or other dangerous animals to residential areas. Fines could then be levied if residents fail to address the problem, according to DEEP officials.
“We're not trying to, you know, be the Grinch that doesn't allow anyone to feed birds,” Trumbull said. “That's not our intention here, but our intention is to provide a mechanism for communities that are experiencing high human-bear conflicts to reduce some of those conflicts. And that starts with feeding bears.”
While the agency has stepped up its public information campaign on how to avoid encounters with black bears, critics charge that DEEP should be investing more resources in educating residents who live near bear habitats, rather than supporting a hunting season.
One of the legislature’s most prominent opponents of hunting, state Rep. David Michel, D-Stamford, has publicly questioned the science behind the agency’s estimates on size and stability of the bear population, saying he believes the real number of animals is much lower. “I have a lot of questions about their so-called expertise,” Michel told CT Insider.
In addition to the bear hunting legislation, the Environment Committee will also hear public testimony Friday on a proposal to eliminate the state’s longstanding ban on Sunday hunting.
Both issues have tended to attract support among Republican lawmakers, particularly those representing rural districts. One of the top-ranking Republicans on the Environment Committee, state Sen. Stephen Harding, R- Brookfield, said that while he has seen heightened attention around both measures compared to previous years, concerns about bear conflicts have dominated much of the discussion.
“There is a collective agreement that we have to do something about bear management,” Harding said. “It’s kind of hard to say where the building is in terms of support.”
In a debate last year, Gov. Ned Lamont stated that he would "probably" support the idea of a bear hunt, if such a bill were to reach his desk.